SideKicks

Issue 1: Face to Face with Fatties

24

AUG/10

The would-be heroes all receive a mysterious message from unknown@unknown.com telling them they’ll have a chance to prove their heroism, should they choose to meet at an abandoned warehouse in the legendarily crime-riddled city of Gotham.

Teen Lantern, Brain Child, The Kinetic Kid, Hybrid, and Tom Albertson arrive at the warehouse. They awkwardly say little one another and investigate the place. During those investigations a TV turns on with a silhouetted and voice scrambled figure on screen. He gives them an address, 1750 Crowley Street and tells them that they’ll be needed. Should they trust him afterwards they can meet up.

The Kid hops on his sentient motorcycle, Newton, while everyone else flies with Teen Lantern. They arrive to see nothing amiss. Brain Child, in a flash of inspiration heads into one building. Using her keen mind and senses she quickly realizes she is in an orphanage for obese children and that trouble is brewing.

The Tween Titans find a set of thugs throwing obese orphans into a van. One van escapes as the Kinetic Kid and Hybrid deal with the other van and Teen Lantern, Tom, and Brain Child fight the abductors in the orphanage. The team hands over the thugs to the cops and tracks down an area where the van disappeared.

After alerting to a mysterious grate in the road, the team investigates and abandoned Ice Cream Parlor where the Kinetic Kid triggers a switch revealing a secret lair. The team prepares for a fight and storms the room to find over a six goons, a dozen dopplegangers of The Penguin, each with a Mad Hatter card! They realize that the Penguin wanted body doubles! While The Kinetic Kid and Hybrid begin to disable the cards on the farthest Fat Orphan Penguins, Tom is knocked down by gunfire, Brain Child frantically works on a scrambler for the mind control, and Teen Lantern plays crowd control. The team mops up with goons and frees the kids and eventually Penguin reveals himself, offering a bargain in exchange for his freedom.

The Penguin reveals that all the Villains are united under Lex Luthor, and that men in the middle, like himself, are stuck in the middle. Moreover, only one man was declined an invitation, The Joker. Gotham’s normal heroes will need help, and he says if the city is in danger of being destroyed he would lend aid…

The heroes are summoned by their mysterious benefactor to Arkham Asylum where they are startled to learn he is an inmate! They proceed down and see form DA Harvey Dent, fully restored and healed in an unlocked cell.

“Most of the crime fighters here will never forget I was Two-Face, but some people still believe in Harvey Dent,” he says sadly. “Bruce Wayne does, at any rate. With my connections to the Underworld and little bit of his money I still can find out major crimes before they start. Yet, I still am not paroled and I refuse to break the law by leaving early. That’s why I’ve brought you here to Gotham… together we can save this town.”